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KILLING THEM SOFTLY – DVD REVIEW

KILLING THEM SOFTLYAnchor Bay

This little gem slipped by my radar completely until I ran across it DVD shopping. KILLING THE SOFTLY is a title that jumps out at me and the cover grabbed my attention as well. Upon a closer look I saw that this movie stars Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini. There was no way I was not going to buy it. This movie is based on a book by George V Higgins, COGAN’S TRADE, a fact that I didn’t know until I started watching and it seemed familiar. (I love the book). Higgin’s book THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE was also made into a movie you should see.

Here’s the run down: A shady business man brings in a couple not so bright thugs to pull a heist. The plan seems sound, hit a mob run card game that has been hit before, split the money, walk away rich and guy holding the bag is predetermined because of a previous robbery. Ray Liotta plays Markie Trattman who is a low level guy with a few connections. People like him and he is trusted to run the game.

BRAD PITT

When it gets hit the first time no one blames him. As time goes on he can’t help himself and lets people know he was actually behind the robbery. They let him off the first time, reluctantly. So as a fall guy for robbery number two he’s perfect.
Like most great plans it looks good on paper.

And then reality enters. Reality in the form of Jackie Coogan played by Brad Pitt. He’s hired by an representative for the families to bring in who ever took the money from the card game. This ends up

RAY LIOTTA

causing a lot of interesting situations to arise. Jackie exp0alins to his contact that when he can he likes to “kill people softly”, easy and fast trying to make them comfortable. Of course most people in this movie who get killed go anything but softly. Gandolfini is a hitman (Mickey) brought in from out of town to do a hit because the guy getting hit knows Cogan. But Mickey has his own problems and as a result ends up making Cogan crazy.

This was an enjoyable film, Andrew Dominik wrote and directed the film and did a nice adaptation. The scenes of dialogue do show that he is probably a Tarantino fan, though to his credit most of the scenes that could easily become

JAMES GANDOLFINI

long winded were just

about perfect length. The movie also shows how desperate people can become in a down economy, and this doesn’t exclude the bad guys. 98 minutes of mob related fun.